DEAR LIFE,

i've always been a big fan of you, and still am. was, is, and will always be.

what's not to like about you? you're pretty, charming, intelligent, understanding, compassionate, full of potential and mysteries to unravel. being with you can certainly make a man's life adventurous, lively, anything but dull and boring. and that is exactly how a man should live: anything but dull and boring. a life that is dull and boring is a life without meaning. a life that, some people say, is not worth living. to me, life such as that is not necessarily without meaning, but definitely still worth living. as long as a man still has you, life, excitement is just an impending occurence.

man seeks happiness, man seeks pleasure, man seeks a peace of mind, man seeks excitement, man seeks love, man seeks things, different for each man, but eventually, a man will seek you, life. why, you ask? because in YOU and you ONLY can a man find the things he seeks. you are an infinite slab of possibilities; nothing is impossible for a man as long as he holds firmly onto you.

but things in life are all about balance: happiness has sorrow, pleasure has pain, white has black, ups have downs, light has dark, good has bad, best has worst. or they can also be the other way around: sorrow has happiness, pain has pleasure, black has white, and so forth, depending on whether seen from a pessimist or an optimist point of view. but in the end it comes to balance. but this idea of balance isn't a demotivating or anything close to that. OPPOSITES AMPLIFY. happiness might be something good, but sorrow makes happiness better. pleasure is something that everyone seeks, but a little taste of pain can amplify the pleasure one receives to no measure. without black, white is just an absence of color.

this is the law of nature. something that even something as majestic, as powerful, as incredible as you, life, cannot escape from.

you, life, has an amplifier: death.

the great epictetus once said that death is nothing to be feared of. what's there to be feared? while you're thinking about death, you are ALIVE, so there is nothing to worry about. and when you're dead, you no longer exist, so you've still got nothing to worry about. what makes a man fear death so much is the THOUGHT of it, not death itself. so by the principle of self-discipline, a man need to fear none if he can discipline his mind.

that's what epictetus said, and i agree, there is no need to fear death. i do not fear death. when i die, then i die. nothing else happens. the only thing that i will be missing is you, life. you, the infinite slab of possibilities, the domain of the things a man seek. but i'm sure by the time i die, i'll be using up your potential, so i won't be missing a thing. what i do fear, though, is leaving behind and not being able to be with those i love most: friends, family, partner, co-workers, relatives. the worst part in death is not the fact that i cannot be with them if i die, but that they will be saddened by my death.

see, life, i am still holding on to you, and i won't let go. i mean, why would i even want to let go something that holds infinite possibilities? something so amazing, probably greater than happiness itself. but what's so despicable of you, is that when you try to adhere to the principle of balance, you become really harsh. and i mean, REALLY harsh.

i like you, life. but sometimes, you kick someone at the WORST possible time, right where it hurts MOST. imagine a skinny scrawny single man who got fired from his job, in deep debt, got stuck in the middle of a rainstorm with a flat tire, realized that he doesn't have a spare tire, then got a gun pointed to his forehead by the truck driver from whom he was asking for a ride, got robbed, got kicked in the nuts, pushed off a ledge, rolled down a steep rocky hill into a bush of wild plants with hella thorns, stuck on a muddy field 100 feet below, then got surrounded by wild monkeys. yeah, it's kinda like that. worst possible time, hurts the most. and that is why sometimes i want to go up to you, look you straight in the eyes, and yell at you: YOU SUCK. YOU'RE UNFAIR. WHY DID YOU DO THIS? WHY NOW? WHY THERE?

i want to hate you for doing this, life. not because it is painful, but rather because there is nothing i can do. i can't stop it, i can't console it. nothing. this is supposed to be something i can at least take part in, though beyond my control. but as of now, i can't even do that.

i want to scream out loud that you're not fair, but then there is that #1 rule of life: life is unfair, get used to it. so that kinda defeats the whole purpose of screaming even before it happens.

thanks, life. i hope you're happy seeing the sad faces of those who always hold on to you no matter what. i hope you're having fun kicking people where it hurts. and you definitely have a really good timing. i hope you still stick with your principle of balance, because the opposite is the only thing i'm looking forward to right now.

your angry fan,
e.